David W. Blight talks about “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” and Bob Spitz talks about “Reagan: An American Journey.”

David W. Blight’s new biography situates Frederick Douglass, the fugitive slave turned abolitionist leader and a brilliant writer and orator, at the center of American history. “He just took to words like it was food,” Blight says on this week’s podcast. “And he became, in time, one of the great geniuses with words really ever produced in America.”

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Blight was most impressed by Douglass’s mental, physical and intellectual endurance, his “ability to still believe, and to demand a place in the country’s creed. He never stopped believing in the basic first principles of the Declaration of Independence. He never stopped believing in the natural rights tradition.”

Another major American, Ronald Reagan, is the subject of the biographer Bob Spitz’s new book. “If you’re going to do a one-volume examination of somebody’s life, you owe it to yourself to find out: What are the most important things you want to say about this person? And to go from there,” Spitz says. He talks about those important things and the rest of his experience writing about Reagan on the podcast.

Also on this week’s episode, Alexandra Alter has news from the publishing world, and Gregory Cowles, Tina Jordan and John Williams talk about what people are reading. Pamela Paul is the host.